Screenshot Democracy 3, an LP: Serenes Forest flies the Commonwealth of Australia into the [heavens/ground]

[Parrhesia]

i was less pissed off before an awesome local meat sandwich shop just had this big old fucking subway set up right next to it

small business supremacy

[Rehab]

Again, we ended up rolling for the choice.

Fortune did not favor the Capitalists this time, no software patents today. The Capitalists are a bit more upset than the Liberals are happy, and we took tiny hits to our GDP and (to my mild surprise) Technology, but it's nothing we can't handle.

Argh. There's a good bit to write up for the next couple of turns, and the agenda for our Australia may meet some of its toughest challenges yet, including how far we're willing to go to reverse corporate exodus and what we're willing to do to keep our technological advantage. I may need your input on how to proceed more than ever, Prime Ministers.

[Rehab]

Before we get into the actual turn, I want to give you guys a preview of what we have to deal with as of turn 22.

Big Ugly #1, AKA Negative Situation 13: Rare Earth Crisis

So, before Clones&Drones, the positive situation Technological Advantage was basically a bonus I'd tend to assume would be gotten and then kept for the rest of the playthrough simply as a matter of course, that shooting for the highest Technology stat was kind of a no-brainer. Without even taking into account any of the other not-quite-so-beneficial aspects of getting a high Tech stat as of C&D, let's just look at that now:

Eesh.

There is a policy that deals with the situation directly, but there are some complications.

Minimal implementation of the same:

Better Foreign Relations (meaning more trade) will make the situation a little easier to finish off, but that won't be enough on its own. Some funding of REMM is necessary to actually beat the situation.

C&D introduces an interesting dilemma; to sustainTechnological Advantage, one has to enact Rare Earth Metal Mining, but that takes hella time to implement (if we don't do it quickly, it might not even completely implement before our second term is over), is significantly expensive, and at any level of funding that would take actually take care of the negative situation, will exacerbate Pollution. To be sure, this wouldn't actually mean certain doom for our environment, as we can enact enough policies to help it that we can actually still beat Pollution even with funding for REMM maxed (assuming we find the money), but it definitely won't make the job easier.

Things we can do to deal with Rare earth crisis, depending on how badly we want to hang onto Technological Advantage, are roughly thus:

1) fund REMM enough to beat the situation (not destroying the environment in the process optional, if strongly suggested). could cost 15+ billion

2) fund REMM, but not enough to beat the situation (though we'll lose TA and the GDP hit will stick around, one may note that even the productivity boost gained by just the lowest level of funding for REMM, costing 1.13 billion, outweighs the productivity lost from the situation, along with neither contributing to Pollution nor offending the Environmentalists, and pleasing both the Capitalists and the Patriots)

3) not caring enough to even implement REMM; we can get our GDP and productivity elsewhere. fuck mining

Big Ugly #2, AKA Negative Situation 14: Corporate Exodus

I'm kinda kicking myself for that Corporation Tax increase I enacted, should've either held off by a good 5% or so or found the money somewhere else. #RapierWasRight

The Rare earth crisis is a pain in the ass, but I think we can actually live with not ending it, at least in the short term. Corporate Exodus, I am less accepting of. Unfortunately, we can't quite solve that one immediately, either- all available methods for dealing with it will take over a fourth of our term to bear out, and could be a bit costly.

Decreasing our Corporation Tax a bit looks like the obvious place to start, but I worry that it won't be enough. If we can stomach it, loosening our Work Safety Law will also help (which will also increase our Productivity, though at the cost of Health) (...which directly affects Productivity. Go figure). Unfortunately, implementing the Maternity Leave policy, which I had in mind at some point as a bone for the Trade Unionists, will also aggravate the situation.

There's something else we can do to fight it, however.

I forget if the hits to Socialist happiness and Equality were always that massive

on the lowest level of funding:

The Tax Shelters policy betrays our election platform, exacerbates inequality and puts the Socialists in a rancid mood, but it's a pretty cheap investment for the GDP it returns and it pleases both the Wealthy (enormously) and the Capitalists.

I think we can beat the situation without enacting it, but it could make the process move quicker and rake in some money.

Things we can do to deal with Corporate Exodus, roughly:

1) Backing off on the Corporation Tax

2) Reducing funding for the Work Safety Law

3) Enacting Tax Shelters just enough to deal with the situation, and later cancelling it

4) Cranking Tax Shelters up to max and keeping it that way. may also be known as "yoloing out of control"

The path that the SBUP's Australia will walk is uncertain, Prime Ministers. Your council is needed.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Rehab

[Parrhesia]

I vote against it, but if we do enact this policy? Well, they can have the rural fucking Northern Territory if they're hellbent on it. No taxes! Or food, water or technology.

[Rapier]

Enact Tax Shelters for now.

[euklyd]

if you haven't already made your decision...

mine the metals - save the environment if you can, I guess, but mostly: drill baby drill

also I'm up for tax shelters, especially if we can get whatever companies we lure in to to work on our clone and/or drone armies as well.

I'm sure cloning technology is great for TA right 8]

(not late at all)

[Excellen Browning]

Drill rare earth minerals, but not enough to solve the situation. Something should be done to alleviate the situation but make no mistake that these minerals will end up being sold to companies in china/taiwan/japan/korea most likely. Rare earth mineral use is in most cases very heavily focused in production of electromagnets, computers and other such high tech wizardry.

As for the corporate exodus: the simple reality is that the wealthy and high income folks are quite happy already and tax sheltering is disgusting inefficient policy to begin with. Cut back on corporate tax for now and see how the situation develops.

[Rehab]

Not to worry, /late myself. All council recorded.

[spoiler=TURNS 22 AND 23: ALL THE "THAT WAS EASY" BUTTONS HAVE SPECTRAL PENTAGRAMS DRAWN IN BLOOD ON THEM]As seen before, turn 22's a bit of a doozy right off the bat.

Geez. We can't get rid of those GDP hits fast enough.

Something that I don't think really sunk in for me before is that GDP has a direct positive effect on Unemployment, which has a negative effect on Productivity, and therefore on GDP. I think we might've caught the bad end of this somehow- our GDP is down, but our Unemployment is up. Dang it, I wish I'd remembered the stuff you're supposed to do to avoid all these negative GDP-drainer situations beforehand (except the Rare earth crisis. that's a new one, man).

A new event with Clones&Drones:

It would be really nice if Health, or Technology, or GDP, or something got a boost with this, dangit.

We're gonna start kinda slow, to conserve PC. First off, throwing the Capitalists an environmentally friendly (?!) but still contentious bone:

I couldn't look at myself in the rearview mirror this morning.

Pretty quick turn for so much happening (the event, Rare earth Crisis, Corporate Exodus, and High Productivity). On to 23:

Yeah, that's pretty much gone forever, unless and until we drill baby drill. x{

Getting down to business tackling the situations: first, we need to reverse the newfound deficit.

I'm probably still acting a fool, trying to hold off from pushing this as far as I know it can go without negative situation level consequences. At least I'm less likely to piss anybody off quicker than I know we can handle this way. (also, I'm starting to wonder just how relatable to real life politics this is actually meant to be. what would a "60% income tax rate" even look like?)

Conciliatory measures:

This is kind of at a level that wouldn't have set off the Exodus, but it probably won't be enough to draw them back on its own. We'll probably have to find something else to compensate.

And of course they couldn't let us get too far without another policy question. Prepare to vote!

Not sure if it's the Socialists, Liberals, or Trade Unionists here pulling for the first choice, but it'd be nothing new for any of them to be having another fight with Capitalists and Self-Employed's for us to referee. Anybody's guess whether Education or GDP could be affected.

[spoiler=CURRENT AFFAIRS]Turn 23 main:

Guess who's not out of the red yet. Not a pretty budget, either.

I've started to wonder about doing a playthrough where I drive debt down to nothing, and then pick up the pieces of the no-doubt shattered state, with the lessened expenditures figure helping to keep everything from flatlining.

It would probably play like a Saw movie. Or more likely I'd just fail to get reelected

Finance:

Eurgh.

At least a couple of situations should be just about to end. They really can't go quick enough. Unfortunately, there's probably not much left to do towards that end for Internet Crime but exactly what I was hoping to avoid- Internet Censorship. At least it should be temporary, and no more than the lightest version of it should be necessary.

Security:

You guys are like boomerangs.

(Business First membership could be a problem- the Battenburg Group terrorists are not to be fucked with. Also it probably doesn't help that all our GDP-boosting policies have made more of the population Capitalists than Socialists, which has... never happened to me before, that I can remember. We need some nanny state goodies up in here.)

Edited November 21, 2014 by Rehab

[Rehab]

The legislature debated and debated, and eventually erupted into such chaos that order couldn't be restored, even to vote, until everyone was so sick of it that they stormed out, work unfinished. This then happened many more times over the course of 3 months. Curious how this issue in particular inspired so much acrimony- maybe we shouldn't have left it until the end of every day to look at. No change in the labor laws were enacted, though the parliament's codes of conduct have been made a bit more stringent.

I can't find anybody who's pleased at this outcome. The Liberals are very minutely annoyed, the Socialists and Trade Unionists are ticked, and the Parents are mad (what are you complaining about?! I assumed they were likely doing it in large part to help you guys!). The Capitalists and Self-Employed's have merely decided to ignore the whole thing. At least I can't find any bad stat changes this time.

[spoiler=TURN 24: SOME PAYOFFS, FINALLY]Realized that it only cost 1 PC, so I cut back on the Work Safety Law before turn 23 went out:

It might seem a bit much of a cut, but the Health bonus and Productivity hit will be exactly equivalent, and it just might finish off the Exodus. We can raise it back up some more after the negative situation is dealt with if you guys would prefer.

Turn 24 vindicates us a little bit with one hand, and throws us our second policy question in a row with the other:

"The situation is now at an end." My favorite sentence in D3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChG7zM-mx6Y

(Again, with apologies to Tryhard that this shit keeps getting in the way. Asthma Epidemic is on the ropes again too, though)

I'm a bit conflicted about this next policy, not because it's bad but because there's so much clamoring for our attention, and this takes the whole turn up. This one is maybe a bit too good as far as the game goes to pass up, though:

GDP increase, Unemployment Decrease, Capitalists and Middle Income pleased is just a damn good spread for just 0.38 billion. This might even finish off Homelessness on its own. We really ought to find a way to appease the Poor, though.

My LP for an update that lasts 3 whole turns. Prepare to vote!

I think this is a rare case of a policy question where one choice will make for a happiness drain with the Everyone "faction," and I think the Farmers will also be extra-miffed. I assume the case for going ahead and building them is being made by the Capitalists and, oddly enough, the greens. Not sure whether the consequences for not building them would be more economic or environmental.

[spoiler=CURRENT AFFAIRS]Turn 24 main:

That Income figure better shoot the heck up in a turn or so.

Finance:

On one hand, it is good. to. be. back. up. with regards to our GDP. On the other, the Global Economy's stuttering. Stand by for future developments.

Security:

Maybe they're just getting a little bored?

Edited November 25, 2014 by Rehab

[Excellen Browning]

It's not as if houses and streets wouldn't have to be broken up if you were to lay down some underground powerlines through a village, and it's not as if the "potential health risks" would be any less if you bury them; if the truth wasn't that these supposed health risks are in reality a fantasy proven wrong many many times. Build the powerlines anyway.

Also don't force the unemployed to perform compulsory work

[Rehab]

After much rankling of chains in the streets and on the Parliament floors, our implementation of Compulsory Work for the Unemployed has been drastically restructured, such that it's now largely geared towards finding work for unemployed volunteers, as opposed to mandating work for all unemployed in order to retain benefits (AKA the lowest level that would still increase GDP and reduce Unemployment).

Regardless, the Socialists and Poor resent that they may be socially pressured into applying, and further lectured unfairly when having difficulty finding a job, instead of receiving more direct living support. In turn, the Capitalists pout about lost potential profits, and some middle-class representatives continue to grumble about the use of their tax dollars, but they both end up taking what they can get when they notice the former two remain the more annoyed ones.

The whole thing has left pretty much nobody totally happy, and therefore the matter is probably as settled as it's going to get. (Unless it's ever reopened at a later date)

Edited November 24, 2014 by Rehab

[Excellen Browning]

Are there any policies that affect the happiness of middle incomes positively? Ones that don't make you a complete asshole?

[euklyd]

I can get behind power lines because capitalism fuck yeah

(the above is wrong on several levels but I'm leaving it because it amuses me)

also I would have said to force the unemployed to play eports instead; with enough funding we might be able to beat samsung white

alternatively "put them to work building drones to replace themselves"

[Rehab]

Are there any policies that affect the happiness of middle incomes positively? Ones that don't make you a complete asshole?

A good question, which I wish had a wider variety of answers in D3.

Out of literally all the yet-unimplemented policies (which for reference may also be found at the bottom of this post),

[spoiler=IF YOU ASK ME TO PREVIEW EVERY SINGLE ONE I'M GONNA GIVE YOU SUCH A PINCH]

I am only sure that Home Fabrication Grants, Mortgage Tax Relief, and Health/School Tax Credits make Middle Incomes happier.

[spoiler=AND WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT, ALL OF THOSE MAKE SOMEBODY UNHAPPY]

All of them tend to increase Middle Earnings, but the tax credits (almost) all increase privatized forms of a bunch of things, which may reduce Homelessness or increase Education or Health or whatever, but increasing private ___ also tends to reduce Equality and decrease Poor and Middle Earnings, whereas state-funded versions don't, and which usually only make the Capitalists less happy. And the Home Fabrication Grants increase Poor/Middle Earnings, but I'm not sure what effects those actually have on GDP and therefore our actual Income, and it decreases International Trade, which I actually know equates to a decrease in GDP, along with Foreign Relations, which leads to a cumulative decrease in International Trade and also likely a decrease in Tourism, which I actually know also makes for a direct decrease in GDP. I have no idea what this adds up to oh god I'm a sham

TL,DR; I have no idea whether any of them are actually good for boosting Income. Also, the Tax Credits are damn expensive, to the point where I wonder if they might be meant to replace the state versions (which seem to have better effects overall?). Mortgage Tax Relief looks to me personally like the most effective Middle-Income-pleaser for the least investment overall, but unfortunately it also costs a hefty 31 PC to enact. Home Fabrication Grants probably comes in second.

[spoiler=SHIT YOU ABSOLUTELY DON'T NEED TO KNOW ALERT: ON HOW I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SIGNIFICANCE "EARNINGS" ACTUALLY HAVE TO GAMEPLAY]I'm not actually sure what impact boosting a given class's (including Poor, Middle, and High) Earnings has economically in D3; supposedly the higher a given class gets the more of its members will move up or down a wealth faction (including Poor, Middle Income, and Wealthy), but aside from influencing the proportion of the population with the opinion modifiers that each faction has, the only direct effects listed on the given Earnings stats,

[spoiler=LISTED THUS,]

(the reason these have gone down so much, which I neglected to scroll down towards in the shot, is that the Food Price stat took a massive toll, particularly as the drought situation got worse)

...is on transport usage of various types, and the Internet Currency Adoption stat, which very slowly reduces the modifier of various tax incomes below 1.00 as it grows.

what the fuck does all this even mean

the numbers Mason

The game implies that each wealth class pays more in taxes, so more Wealthy people equals more Income Tax revenue, for example, but looking at the income history for that, the only factor it lists is GDP!

WHAT DO THEY MEAN MASON

[Excellen Browning]

*sigh*

I live in the Netherlands. This country has had mortgage tax relief for a few decades now. The painful truth is that by far he most of these tax benefits goes to people who use it to buy more expensive houses(around 96% of the entire cost), not people who would use it to bridge the gap between being forced to rent and being able to buy a house. It also means the Netherlands has one of the largest mortgage debt in the world, despite being a small country and not very high home ownership.(about half of all households owns its home)

I'm completely opposed to the idea of this kind of mortgage tax relief, but considering two of the other options mean the state finances middle incomes trying to live above their pay and the one left over means you can fabricate a gun in your home, I'm alright with the mortgage tax reliefs. Implement it if you have budget for it.

[Rehab]

Yeah, I'm also a bit wary of implementing it fully just on the gameplay side, because the Clones&Drones store page lists a new situation to come with the DLC called Real estate bubble. Makes me kinda nervous.

(Other situations said to come with C&D that I've never yet seen:

Cyclones

Food crisis

Drone Protests

Luddite Riots
Antibiotics-Resistant Bacteria
Weather Prediction Technology
Virtual Reality Market Leader

Some of these make me nervous enough to think about putting in place some other policies, like (low-level?) Antibiotics Ban and maybe a very low-level Automation Tax, hopefully before they trigger)

Edited November 24, 2014 by Rehab

[euklyd]

I like the hybrid cars initiative, personally

as far as the numbers go it looks like home fabrication grants and mortgage tax relief are best; home fabrication grants help out The Poor and The Middle Class, but mortgage tax relief helps The Middle Class much more...

I would go with the one that helps out both, but if we care about The Middle Class more then we should go with the latter option, I guess

[Rehab]

To be sure the Poor have a bunch more stuff we can throw at them, like Food Stamps and Free School Meals are pretty good policies just by the numbers in D3 that I've been meaning to get off for a while now, and they'll also just be really pleased to have the Homelessness situation dealt with. If it seems like I haven't cared about their happiness very much, a good deal of that's just because I've just been putting off the measures for them a while.

[euklyd]

It was more like

it was middle-class unhappiness being talked about and not the unhappiness of The Poor

although I'm sure that in our glorious nation there are no poor anyways

[Parrhesia]

holy shit all those red options to become a fascist theocracy with the national anthem sung at the start of schools and banning civil rights and holy shit democracy 3 has clearly got an 'it's complicated' relationship with actual democracy.

I assume them being red means we can't implement them, right? Why's that?

[Rehab]

Red just means we don't have enough PC to spend on a given policy that turn; those always get shunted below the ones in white, which are the ones we still have the PC to enact for that turn. Although generally the farther down we go through a sphere of administration, the more likely they are to get plain nutty, yes

(To be sure, a lot of the really wacky ones, as noted above, came with the second DLC, rather accurately titled EXTREMISM)

(>Compulsory Work for the Unemployed was in there)

Edited November 25, 2014 by Rehab

[Rehab]

As expected, the Everyone faction took a ('nother) hit and the Farmers are extra-pissed (but at least still high in the yellow), while the Capitalists are sitting pretty, and our economic/environmental stats are... unharmed. Also untouched. Hrm.

And of course the game would pick right now to throw another curveball.
[spoiler=TURNS 25-26: I GOT YOUR BOOTSTRAPS RIGHT HER- *COUGHS BLOOD*]

So turn 25 starts out just swimmingly- wait, what's that there

WHAT

Oh, and I checked our security screen that same turn just for laughs.

Okay. I'm cool. It's fine. Everything's fine.

I spent rather a lot of time trying to figure out where to go with this turn. We have a lot on our plate:

-try to get the Middle Incomes to crack a smile (our chosen method for which costs more than a turn's worth of PC)

-not get assassinated by the Religious (who hold sway over a maddening 1.60% of the population fer chrissake) or Liberals (who (in large part because of the demographic shifts enabled by our policies) are 3/4 of the population and in the mid-yellow, which is kinda "uhhhh *loosens collar, sweats*") (both of their terrorist groups started growing as of turn 25)

-beat down the Corporate Exodus (starting to worry again that we might indeed have to temporarily use Tax Shelters to finally end it)

-enact Rare Earth Mining (again, more than a turn of PC)

-finally destroy the Asthma Epidemic once and for all (jesus do I ever hope it doesn't come back afterwards)

-destroy the Internet Crime situation, whose enders (Internet Censorship and/or Internet Tax) require both at least a turn of PC and piss some dudes off (hopefully, both will be temporary)

-get the money to enact a version of the Climate Change Adaptation Fund which does more than jack diddly squat (so like 27 billion spare)

-ensure The Poor don't get any more eaten than they are already

-Biohazard?! What do you want from us Democracy 3

So, I got to thinking; we're gonna be playing catchup for months until our ministers get the lead out of their asses. My personal preference as a D3 player would be to enact some faction-pleasing policies in order to please our ministers and get our PC per turn back up, now that we have a good little surplus again, but that comes second to the will of the PMs, of course.

Then I realized something: the Homelessness situation negatively influences the happiness of both the Middle Incomes and Liberals! (And, uh, The Poor, obviously. *cough*) If we beat it, we should be able to hit a flock of issues with one stone!

Working towards that end, 2 policies that are great at fighting Poverty, a major contributor to Homelessness in D3:

I'm being a little stingy with funding at the moment, but lucky for even miserly me there's another function that can do just as much to fight Poverty as Food Stamps fully-enacted for less than a third of the price (your realism may vary):

Now that is a dang good policy as far as D3 is concerned. (we can also go back and fund Food Stamps fully any time, for the extra Poverty kick/Equality boost/things)

Also, since Euklyd suggested it and we owe Tryhard something for the Environment/Asthma Epidemic anyway:

I don't think I realized before how good a policy the Hybrid Car Initiative is in a gamey sense. Only $0.33 billion to fund, reduces Oil Demand (good for Expenditures) and helps the Environment, and costs a mere 9 PC to enact, plus it makes nobody unhappy. The thing I was a bit slow to overlook before was that it increases Car Usage, but the Environment boost is at least double that, so it should actually be good overall for the Asthma Epidemic and such.

Kinda. Feeling a little dumb for not realizing how good it is earlier.

Turn 26 gives us a chance to breath. I decided to save some of our PC after enacting the first thing, to check if you guys have any preferences as to what to focus on. Despite that things may look like they're going a little topsy-turvy, I think we actually have enough wiggle room that you guys can feel free to pick which of the above concerns to focus on first. (it's just that as de facto treasurer, I may end up also acting to try to increase our Income somehow at the same time)

That first thing:

The power player in me sees this as a candidate for getting raised in the future. Jacking up the Food Price too quick might have undesired consequences, though, so I left it on the edge of "LOW" funding for the moment. (Interestingly, if you push the slider all the way to the left, it will say "NONE," despite that we're obviously still funding it and it has an effect. D3 got quirks)

We also have a chance to breath because we just got a great policy question. Prepare to... prevaricate?!

Patriots and Conservatives versus Liberals, Ethnic Minorities, and maybe Foreign Relations?

Too perfect. Should've sent poet.

[spoiler=CURRENT AFFAIRS]Turn 26 main:

The faction happiness front might not look much improved, but on the other hand:

Read em and weep, Poverty.

Also, once we get our Equality stat high enough, a positive situation called Egalitarian Society should start, which'll make the Everyone "faction" happier. Should be good for our security, too.

Finance:

Phew, the Global Economy thing was just a stutter. So far.

The decrease in (Relative) GDP makes me wonder a little, though. We don't have a lot of direct GDP-boosters left, but not to worry, there's plenty of stuff yet to do to increase our Income (and that's going beyond just ending Internet Crime and Corporate Exodus).

Security:

Our worries aren't quite dealt with, but at least the bar's not speeding towards an assassination attempt. I'm banking on Homelessness ending soon to make everybody lighten up a little.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Rehab

[Excellen Browning]

Support the monarch, or otherwise completely ignore the incident aside from confirming that it could be interpreted as a racist comment. It's a faux pas to take criticism outside.

australian royalty what

[Parrhesia]

Criticise the monarch. I cannot stress my opinions on this far enough.

They're a pack of inbred racist cunts who somehow continue to be our head of state and their appointed representative once fired the democratically elected Prime Minister. If they get caught out then they can go to fucking hell.

[Rehab]

So Excellen's thoughtful restraint is appreciated as always, but I think we're criticizing the monarch you guys